Director of Media Relations at Kellogg Meg Washburn called the selection “very fortuitous.” Officials at Northwestern’s business school, which will host the event, secured Krugman to speak last week — before Monday’s announcement that he had won the Nobel Prize, Washburn said.

Krugman is a professor of economics at Princeton University and writes a twice-weekly column for the New York Times. He will deliver an hour-long lecture at Coon Auditorium to kick off a new “Distinguished Lecture Series” commissioned by the Kellogg dean’s office.

Krugman won the award “for his analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity,” according to the Nobel announcement.